Candid Camera made people laugh with the way they caught people unaware. Recently ABC's Primetime made people think with a series of episodes titled "What Would You Do?" The premise was simple. Let people see others doing something and record whether or not they get involved.
A man is shown putting a powder into his dates drink. One man at the counter sees it and confronts the man over his wife's objections. There are the couple of "ugly Americans" in Paris and we watch as we see how far you can push the French and fellow travelers before they intervene. But, perhaps the worse and the best occurred when an actor behind the counter in a convenience store confronts a Hispanic, also an actor, with a nasty and bigoted attitude. One person at the counter just snickers as the clerk refuses to serve him till he can speak English and mutters when he's asked, "Do they look legal to you?"
The good comes when an obvious regular hears this and gets in the face of the counterperson. He goes so far as to get the attention of the owner or manager and tells him to straighten the guy out because we don't do things like this here.
Each and every one of us is subject to the same sort of observation as these unsuspecting people. The difference is that our action and inaction aren't being broadcast to the TV sets of our friends and neighbors across our country. We're being observed by none other than God Himself. Psalm 139 is not just poetry but instructive, as to just how much God knows and sees. Jesus reminds us that our very hairs are numbered, so great is God's attention to us.
Psalm 139 is a word of promise and comfort to those who are in the process of walking openly with Christ each day, but it's a warning and a bit disconcerting to those who want to keep secrets from God and others. It isn't unusual for it to have both affects at the same time for some of us. That's because we live in the world, are called to not be of the world, and we fail at keeping ourselves unstained by the original sin, so embedded in our souls.
Most of us are familiar with Peter's great statement of faith, when Jesus asks the disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" Peter says, "You are the Christ." Mark 8:28-30. But it is Philip who accepts the teaching of his mentor John the Baptizer and tells his brother Nathanael, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Philip was certain Jesus' was the Christ and when Nathanael understood the claim Philip was making.
Nathanael's response was sort of the way Portlanders feel about those from anywhere else but he gets up and follows Philip to meet this teacher. When Jesus sees him he refers to a story which any Jewish man would know well, the story of Jacob. Unlike Jacob, Nathanael, had no dishonesty, larceny, or guile he was the type of Jewish man God had intended for His people to be. Nathanael, overwhelmed with Jesus' knowledge declares, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God and the King of Israel!" and you can almost hear a laugh in Jesus' voice as he says, Nathanael, you're going to see so many greater things and the rest of you, you will observe the heaven's open and the same sort of experience Jacob had with angels ascending and descending on me, not some rock.
As wonderful as it may seem simply to believe God knows everything about us it is more wonderful when we live out the work God toward which leads us. There are some wonderful examples of this right around us in Portland. Have you ever wondered by there aren't any John Astor, Andrew Carnegie, or Commodore Vanderbilt hospitals? The reason is there was money in industry and railroads but not hospitals.
Who started hospitals? It was those who heard Jesus say, "Follow me" and who, in discovering the truth about Jesus, like Philip, rushed off to do go where Jesus sent them. Because of that in 1858 a group of nuns from the Sisters of Providence opened a hospital in Vancouver, WA and Seventeen years later St. Vincent in Portland was dedicated. The Episcopal Church saw a need and because of the generosity of Bishop Morris Good Samaritan Hospital also opened in 1875. Lutherans also heard this call and transformed an old Victorian home into a 28 patient hospital and nursing school about the same time Kenton was being formed, 1912-1915. It's now called Emanuel Hospital. Had there been money in medicine you can bet your life those tycoons would have been involved. Instead it was left to Christ's people to care for the ill.
What would you do if Jesus said "follow me"? What would you do if you heard a voice tell you to go start a hospital, a prayer ministry at school, or sponsor a child through Compassion or World Vision? What would you do if Jesus is who He claims to be, the Christ, the King of Israel?
A 19 year-old heard God's call to become a missionary to the Motiolone tribe in South America. Bruce Olsen heard a voice tell him, "I want you in South America." The churches mission board rejected him because he didn't have the degree which missionaries usually had.
Again, Bruce heard the same voice with the same message. This time Bruce said, "but Lord, I can't go. I was rejected!"
The answer was, "Rejected by who?...I didn't reject you. I want you in South America."
Bruce went. His family thought he was nuts but off he went to Caracas. In the course of living with the Motilone Indians Bruce was shot with arrows, contracted hepatitis and was short of food and water on more than one occasion. But in spite of this, his continued care and work with this group saw them come to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It wasn't because he got the education, jumped through hoops or pleased others, Bruce became an inspiration to others to serve in such places simply because he gave God first place in his life. He cared more about pleasing God than pleasing the critics.
We are going to face opportunities when we will be challenged to take a step forward in the name of Jesus and for the sake of our Lord. They may be scary places. They will most certainly be uncomfortable places. Regardless, when we obey and step in we discover the glory of doing what God calls us to do and being who Jesus desires us to be. I'll end with a favorite saying of Dr. Laura Schlesinger, "Now, go do the right thing."
http://www.providence.org/phs/archives/History_OnLine/stvincent1.htm; http://www.legacyhealth.org/body.cfm?id=1822&oTopID=1822&PLinkID=35; http://www.legacyhealth.org/body.cfm?id=144&oTopID=144&PLinkID=33
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